March. London at its drabbest. But walk around the back of the Royal Academy on Burlington Gardens and there is a trail of optimism leading into the premises. Every year, thousands of hopefuls turn up in person to deliver their art works to the venerable gallery, hoping to get them into the Summer Exhibition where they will hang beside the pieces exhibited by some of the biggest names in world art.

It’s the biggest open submission art show in the world, with around 11,000 works of art being whittled down to a mere thousand by the curators. It’s a ritual that’s been going on for jolly nearly 250 years and it’s also the event that used to begin the social season every May, with the Chelsea Flower Show hot on its heels.

These days they’ve swapped places – Chelsea is now the first event in a run of glamorous occasions lasting from May to early August, and these occasions are about as English as you can get. English, note, not British. They all take place in southeast England, all within 70 miles of London, and they mark out the summer like the chiming of a clock. Go, by all means. But you may need to wear a hat.

Three years ago I went to every event of the season for a book I was writing on the subject — The Season: A Summer Whirl Through The English Social Season. I rolled up to judging day Monday at the Chelsea Flower Show, when everyone except the chosen few gets chucked out at 2pm before the Royal Visit.

I failed to get a work of art into the Summer Exhibition – mainly because I failed to send one in by the spring deadline, which is strictly adhered to – and then failed to buy one because the few I could afford had been snapped up in a trice.

I went to the Derby on an open topped double decker bus, got a voucher for the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, camped at Wimbledon, swam the course at Henley, picnicked in my best dress on the sylvan lawns of Glyndebourne’s opera house, trod divots into the polo ground at Smith’s Lawn, bet on the Celebrity Ladies’ race at Goodwood and pranced about at the Royal Yacht Squadron Ball in Cowes.

Had it been earlier in the 20th century, and had I been sufficiently Old School, I would then have set off on a yachting holiday with my paints and pet chinchilla, or caught a train – preferably private, you want to do these things in style – to the moors in Yorkshire or Scotland to shoot grouse. Er, correction. In order to mull over game recipes and be supportive to my husband while he shot grouse.

Ah well. Times have changed. And the good thing about that is the season events’ formidable reputation for propriety and poshness has relaxed a little. If there’s a dress code, there will be instructions on the website (Ascot has actually done videos this year, showing the horrors of the spaghetti strap – too thin – or the sight of above-the-knee skirts – too short). Most of the time, though, there isn’t one. Codes only apply if you are in an enclosure, and then only the poshest ones, and you don’t have to be in an enclosure to have a great time.

The bad news about that is that on occasions – a hot day, too much champagne involved, you know the sort of thing – the cheerier ends of these events can get a little feral. I’m thinking of evenings on the riverbank at Henley, which is free, or top hats flying in the Grandstand at Ascot, which has happened once or twice.

Overall, though, everyone is there to have fun. Everyone is dressed up in their own way, which may not be yours, and sometimes they are even interested in the sports/ flowers/operas/rowing races on offer. Most of all, you will never, ever see anything more ludicrously, delightfully and exasperatingly English. Go!

A dreamy vision of Englishness, with people in formal dress sauntering through the gardens pre-performance, thinking of Mozart, Ravel, or possibly whether the egg mayonnaise in their picnic has curdled.

It’s the economy, stupid! Look between the begonias and you will see where the money lies in Britain today: it’s heaving with FTSE100 CEOs, albeit swamped by garden nuts – and, oh, and all those plants.

Tickets: From £39 for Thursday 3pm to 8pm, £59 all day Saturday or £73 for the Chelsea By Twilight gig on Friday.

Not as snooty as Ascot, not as chic as Goodwood, but a brilliant race and guaranteed laugh. Hats in the posh stands, smart casual on the double decker buses, or bikinis (check weather forecast) on the Hill.

Tickets: £13.50 to £90 in the enclosures on Ladies’ Day, £22.50 to £110 on Derby Day. Free on The Hill (£15-20 for Family Enclosure).

Your chance to see grandpa’s Sunday painting alongside works by the art world’s great and good. Ignore the jibes, this is a brilliant way to see art – painting, sculpture, installations, architects’ models – and buy it.

Yes, it’s OTT, yes, there’s too much fake tan and yes, there’s the odd scuffle between top hats, but Ascot is confident, glossy, utterly English and has brilliant racing. The Royal Enclosure takes a bit of getting into but it’s easy to get a ticket elsewhere. Or stand on the Heath in jeans.

What do you mean, you didn’t enter the ballot? Your only option, then, for the world’s only Grand Slam to be played on grass, is to shell out loads on a package from an official agent, or to knock off two great British institutions at once, and learn to wait in The Queue (note caps.)

Don’t try for Stewards’ unless you are a rower, related to a rower, or have finally crested the Members’ waiting list (10 years or so.) Go for the Regatta Enclosure instead, hire a boat or occupy the very long, very narrow, very drunken (after about 6pm) riverbank for free.

Will Audi stump up for sponsorship again this year? Whichever way, the trick is to avoid stilettos – you get stuck in the grass when you tread in the divots – and to go and see the pony lines. Watch the Coronation Cup, pretend you understood it, and then buzz off to the party tents.

Ah. The ‘Glorious’ bit of ‘Glorious Goodwood’ appears to have been bought by Qatar. But on a sunny day you can’t beat this aristocratic racecourse with its cluster of white stands tucked into the Downs. It’s smaller than Ascot and lower key, though stylish. Dip a toe in the water and watch free from the former Iron Age hill fort known as The Trundle.

By now everyone’s sick of formal – except the Royal Yacht Squadron, of course, whose annual bash is super-well-dressed – and no, you’re not invited. Instead don fleece, shorts, tanned legs and a beer cooler on each shoulder and make for parties and gigs at crew houses if you can get an invite, Cowes Yacht Haven, Shepherds Wharf Marina and pubs in town. And definitely hang around for the last night fireworks.

Sophie combines guiding with a career as a journalist and author: she writes for the Daily Telegraph travel pages and her work appears in publications across the world. Her book on the English summer, The Season (Aurum), went into paperback in 2014. She lives in Battersea and guides across the capital as…

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